Texas Quidditch Win The Quidditch World Cup VI!

This past weekend, the Quidditch World Cup VI was held in Florida. More than 80 collegiate teams from around the United States assembled to compete in the Harry Potter-inspired sport, battling it out with broomsticks and balls at the ready.

Teams with names like the Silicon Valley Skrewts and the New York Badassalisks fought it out for the top spot, but it was the University of Texas who emerged victorious in the grand final against UCLA. The score was 2:1. You can watch the whole thing here.

Wait. What?

Yep. Harry Potter is a big deal to kids these days. The current generation of tweens and teens and twenty-somethings came of age with the books and films, and today’s high school students have never lived in a world without bludgers, quaffles and golden snitches. It was only a matter of time until someone took the fictional sport of quidditch and turned it into a real thing.

Don’t you need to be magical?

The magical kids in the Harry Potter books whizz around high up in the air on broomsticks, but special rules have been created so that muggles can play too. Play essentially involves teams of seven — three chasers, two beaters, a keeper and a seeker — running around a field chasing balls with broomsticks clasped between their legs.

The sport combines elements of lacrosse, basketball, rugby, baseball and, uh, tag. The elusive golden snitch is a real person, dressed in yellow, running wildly around the pitch with a tennis ball stuffed into a sock and tucked into their pants.

The seekers must attempt to grab the sock without making physical contact with the snitch, otherwise things would get weird.

The International Quidditch Association is a thing, and their rulebook lays out the rules in minute details – give it a read if you have a couple of hours to spare.

Quidditch is serious business.

The first official Muggle Quidditch team formed at Middlebury College, Vermont, in 2005, and there are now thousands of teams worldwide. Boise State University in Idaho might actually be tearing down school facilities to build a quidditch field, and student groups from around America have been lobbying to make Quidditch an NCAA-sanctioned sport.

Time Magazine have said that players “move with the grace and ferocity of top athletes; the best of them look like lacrosse players and hit like linebackers.”

 

I want to play too!

Well lucky for you, Australia is home to the world’s largest quidditch community outside of the United States. There are numerous university-affiliated teams, and events such as Sydney’s Severus Slam, which also includes wheelchair quidditch. You could join one of those, or just take some brooms and balls to the park with your mates. Just do whatever you want, okay? I’m not your dad.

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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer.

Photos from Muggle Net, Quidditch World Cup (Twitter) and Quidditch World Cup (Facebook).